Lesslie Newbigin Resources

Here are the books, tapes and Internet connections we know about the websites seem surprisingly thin on the ground. If you know of any further resources, please write to us at this address.

Article on Newbigin

For a highly readable and inspiring introduction to Lesslie Newbigin, see Tim Stafford's article from December 1996 in Christianity Today magazine. Stafford writes: 'When Lesslie Newbigin returned to the West after 35 years in India, he found his native England had become a foreign mission field '

Tapes of Sermons and Bible Studies

Holy Trinity Brompton, in London, has an impressive collection of tapes of Lesslie's sermons and Bible studies from the mid-1990s. Particular highlights are Jesus' Farewell Discourse, a series of talks covering John chapters 13-17, a Bible School in the book of Romans from 1995, plus sermons on 'The Gospel as Public Truth', 'Seven Words of the Cross', and others. For prices, credit card orders, or for the full catalogue, phone the HTB Bookshop on 0171 590 8228.

Internet Site

The Gospel & Culture movement in New Zealand has an essay on Newbigin's thinking, which can be found on their Website.

Most Recent Books

A number of Newbigin's books are in print. The Holy Trinity Brompton bookshop has a wide range, with mail order by credit card (0171 590 8226). For out-of-print and US editions, try searching by author name at the excellent Amazon Books, which has a good reputation for finding and delivering books at speed.

The most recent books are

The Open Secret: Sketches for a Missionary Theology (Eerdmans, 1978). A summary of Newbigin's approach to Christian missions.

The Other Side of 1984: Questions for the Churches (WCC Publications, 1983). The seminal book for the Gospel and Culture movement.

Unfinished Agenda: An Autobiography (Eerdmans, 1985; updated version, St Andrew Press, 1993). The story of a remarkble life, told by the one who lived it. The updated version has a chapter entitled 'Postscript 1982-92', which deals with the beginings of the Gospel and Culture movement in the UK, and Newbigin's motivations behind it.

Foolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture (Eerdmans, 1986). An expansion of The Other Side of 1984, based on his 1984 Warfield lectures at Princeton Theological Seminary. Newbigin outlines the main contours of modern culture, exploring the idea of the gospel as public truth and its implications for contemporary culture.

The Gospel in a Pluralist Society (Eerdmans, 1989; SPCK, 1990). A much more detailed volume on how the Christian gospel relates to a socitey marked by religious pulralism, ethnic diversity, and cultural relativism.

Truth To Tell: The Gospel as Public Truth (Eerdmans, 1991). A rejection of the idea that the gospel is merely a matter of private opinions or personal values. Newbigin reasserts the objective, historical truth of the gospel and argues that the public life of Western cultue must be evaluated in its light.

Proper Confidence: Faith, Doubt and Certainty in Christian Discipleship (Eerdmans, 1995). A continued attack on Enlightenment assumptions about knowledge and their impact upon the churches.

Truth and Authority in Modernity (Trinity Press International, 1996). Appearing in the 'Christian Mission and Modern Culture' series, this brief book asks how the church can speak with authority in a culture that is suspicious fo all claims to authority.

This compilation is taken from Lawrence Osborn's Restoring the Vision (Mowbray, 1995).